At 2006-08-26 12:33 PM +0200, Joachim Durchholz is rumored to have said:
>I've always wondered what these other reasons might be (because the
>ability to sue has always been striking me as a rather weak argument):
>What would these other reasons be?
I have only one concrete example of commercial vs OS behavior, and it
defies logic.
Initially the client was quite keen on open-source products because
they were seen as more "nimble" than traditional boxed software. They
could add features as they wished and tailor the package to their own use.
Open source products were also seen as more secure - because they
allowed the client to examine the source code and detect or close any
backdoors or confirm that such backdoors did not exist.
However, the client is now talking about using a commercial product
because it is "supported" by an organization and is not just some guy
in his garage. I am pretty sure that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
started their companies in garages, so I don't see the problem -
especially if you have the source!
And of course the security concerns are now buried under assurances
from the commercial vendor that the software is secure, since the
end-user no longer has access to the source.
Neil Herber
Corporate info at http://www.eton.ca/